So I was listening to the boPod in the office when Mya’s “Best of Me” remix came on.  I’m a big fan of that song, purely because of the Jigga verses.  I could go on all day long about those verses, but this was the first time in a few years I’d actually paid much attention that what Mya was saying.  You’ll have to forgive me, but she rarely has anything to say that I find worth listening to.
But I digress.
Should you be unfamiliar with the song–or just don’t remember it that well–the whole premise is that she doesn’t know what to do because she’s got a man, but she’s met a dude that’s really captivated her.  If I’m interpreting the song right, he also kisses her on the neck a few times.
Her internal question?
“Should I stay?  Should I go?  I don’t know.”
Uhhh, yes you do, moron.  Take your stupid ass home. 
But you know what?  She may as well stay.  She’s already done enough to get sent packing by her man.  Maybe she should have asked the question sooner.
For purposes of intellectual exploration, though, let’s assume that she asked the question sooner.
It’s one of those queries with only one right answer.  You know what you should do.  It’s just a matter of whether you’ll actually do it.  And, in this case, it was too late.
It kinda made me think about part of the reason I’m not particularly enamored with contemporary music.  It’s not that things ain’t like they were in my golden youth or anything.  It’s because pop music is littered with themes that i find to be either stale or just plain stupid.
This song is just plain stupid.  You can’t pose this one as though it’s really a quandary.  Were the song about the guilt she was feeling, then I’d look at it differently.  But this “I don’t know what to do” bullshit is met from me with nothing but a cocked brow and a great big, “g’head wit dat dere.”
But when I was 19 or so, I really may have listened to that song and said, “you gotta be in that situation to understand what she’s talking about.”  Now, I’m 26.  I’ve been in that situation before.  I’ve messed up in that situation, too.  But not for a minute did I pretend like it was some moral dilemma.  It was a battle between what I wanted to do right then and what I knew I was supposed to do.
You don’t need to fetch Nietschze for that one.  There’s nothing deep about balancing whether something will be fun with whether that fun thing will be harmful.  If that balance were so tough to navigate, I’d probably be a heroin addict.
But it ain’t.  So I’m not.
Anyway, this is what I find in all kinds of stuff I listen to.  I listen a lot less hip hop than I used to because it’s starting to feel like I’ve heard it all before.  That isn’t to say what’s out now is worse than what was out when I was in high school.  It’s just that I’ve been listening to much of the same stuff since I was in high school.
And I’m bored.
Nostalgia makes it possible for me to go back and listen to stuff from the younger days.  And there are some classics that will bang forever, no matter how cliche they are (for example, check Young Jeezy’s Let’s Get It: Thug Motivation 101).  But it ain’t so easy for me to listen to a new jack hit me with this stuff and get me interested.
I find now that I’m deepening my familiarity with the classics.  I also spend a bit of time charting the progressions of my favorite artists.  But it’s very, very rare I hear something new that really invigorates me.
I just need something new.  Or maybe I need to be younger.  Not sure which.